might be worth checking for a driver update, just in case. Presumably the hub has N mode selected, does it give you channel width options (wider = more bandwidth)

Does your wireless router have a quality of service protection that restricts wireless capacity to protect the wired computers from being limited.

Try whilst being RIGHT next to the router. So the laptops basically touching it.

What's the connection rate reported on the wireless connection as and what's a speedtest show?
Use this tester
http://speedtester.bt.com/beta/

In reply to a post by clarkac:

I've had the bottom grade BT fibre since Nov 16th and get 24mb down and 8mb up at my wireless laptop. I ran the 'proper' BT speed test and got the results below. I'm surprised by the large 10mb difference between the test and and the rate I get at the laptop. The BT hub is only 7m away through one internal brick wall, on the same floor. Maybe I should rework the cabling to get the BT hub nearer. Any comments?
=========================================================================
1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
Download Speed
34.07 Mbps

0 Mbps 0 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speed achieved during the test was - 34.07 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 12 Mbps-0 Mbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 38.72 Mbps

2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.
Upload Speed
8.48 Mbps

0 Mbps 10 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 8.48Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 10 Mbps

At the end of the day wireless will allways be inferior when compared to wired ethernet , be it less throughput or higher latency(pings) so apart from browsing reading /sending e-mail /social media , and the like , it's rubbish compared to ethernet cat 5-6 cable( LAN 100mb/1gb ) and is a security risk or can be

In reply to a post by clarkac:

Tried a couple of channel changes, which only made matters worse. I guess the problem is my laptop's wireless which although running as 'n' is effectively stuck at 'g'. I have no idea why though.

You need 5 GHz wireless-N.

2.4GHz is too crowded, as you've found out. When I had infinity I bought a 5GHz wireless access point, and upgraded all the client computers to have 5 GHz capable N cards, my throughput then increased to match the attainable throughout via Ethernet.

Bit of a PITA but that's just the nature of wireless networking I'm afraid.

Wirless should not affect latency . Latency is dependent on distance and the medium the signal travels along

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Wirless should not affect latency . Latency is dependent on distance and the medium the signal travels along

Incorrect. Latency can increase if bandwidth is reduced due to crosstalk with other wireless networks. You may also see lag spikes and a marginally (1-5ms) higher baseline ping due to the computational time required by the sending and receiving wireless chipsets.

Especially with the more recent AES / WPA encryption, encoding and decoding overheads are prevalent.

Edited by izools (Tue 01-Jan-13 10:40:10)

The first part of your post is broadly correct, the second is merely another example of your wilful posting of misinformation, about which you have been warned several times.

It is becoming tiresome... desist.

He did have the sense to say "should not ...".

In reply to a post by billford:

He did have the sense to say "should not ...".

Haha, fair enough man.

Oh, and happy new year all!